trav867 >>>"Had planned to walk the ridge over to Mt. Rixford but didn't have the energy, so I decided descending this ridge to Rae Lakes would be a good idea. It wsn't. Not sure what I was thinking, and very lucky neither of us got hurt. Note the weather tower in the upper left to help judge scale."

When roaming crosscountry especially about Sierra Crest areas, one ought be using their topographic maps religiously instead of having them buried deep in a pack. Although some areas may easily be sized up by eyesight alone, in unfamiliar steeper areas there are a great many areas that at ridgelines appear negotiable looking down, only to cliff out below where it is difficult to see over terrain knees. That is because huge glaciers that created many of our granite canyon features ground away on the walls in a U-shaped manner.